In Fall 2021, Moot Court Executive Board Member, Whitney Carter, launched a Speaker Series which features compelling debates and lectures on a wide range of legal topics. The Series is typically held on a weekday during the lunch break (12:30-1:30) and all events are open to the law school at large.
If there is a topic or expert that you would like to see featured in the next Speakers Series, please contact Whitney Carter or any of the other Executive Board members with your suggestion.
In July, the NCAA implemented a rule change that allowed college athletes the right to use their own name, image, and likeness. Come listen to Professor David Carter (Associate Professor of Sports Business at the Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California) and Professor Jake Garlock (Senior Associate Athletics Director, Utah State University) discuss some of the key business and legal issues relevant to this decision.
In June 2021, the US Supreme Court decided National Collegiate Athletic Association v Alston et al. The Syllabus summarizes the case as follows: “Colleges and universities across the country have leveraged sports to bring in revenue, attract attention, boost enrollment, and raise money from alumni. That profitable enterprise relies on “amateur” student-athletes who compete under horizontal restraints that restrict how the schools may compensate them for their play. The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) issues and enforces these rules, which re-strict compensation for student-athletes in various ways. These rules depress compensation for at least some student-athletes below what a competitive market would yield.
Current and former student-athletes challenged the NCAA’s restrictions on compensation based on the argument that the NCAA’s restrictions on compensation violate §1 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits “contract[s], combination[s], or con-spirac[ies] in restraint of trade or commerce.” 15 U. S. C. §1.” (NCAA v Alston, 2021)
The US Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion holding the NCAA’s rules restricting certain education-related benefits for student-athletes violate federal antitrust laws.
US v Elizabeth Holmes is the case of a disgraced businesswoman who founded the med-tech company, Theranos. Come listen to Associate Dean, Karen Sandrik and Senior Assistant Attorney General, Colin Benson discuss some of the key patent law and white-collar crime issues relevant to the trial. Download the event flyer.
Elizabeth Holmes dropped out of Stanford in 2004 and used her tuition money to create a consumer healthcare tech company called Theranos. Her goal was to develop and patent technology that could detect hundreds of diseases from only a single drop of blood. To accomplish this, she developed a machine called “The Edison” which she claimed could detect the diseases in a matter of minutes. In 2013, she established a partnership with Walgreens to launch in-store blood sample collection centers.
Holmes, who dressed like Steve Jobs, and spoke in an allegedly fake, deep baritone voice, managed to charm dozens of influential people including Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger, James Mattis, and George Schultz into joining Theranos as board members and investors.
In 2014, Forbes put Holmes on the cover of its magazine and labeled her “the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire.” At that time, Theranos was valued at $9 billion and had raised more than $400 million in venture capital. Holmes’s name was then on 18 U.S. patents and 66 foreign patents.
In 2015, John Carreyrou of The Wall Street Journal published a series of articles detailing how members of the scientific community believed it was impossible to test for so many diseases using such a small blood sample, reporting whistleblowers’s concerns that the Edison device gave inaccurate results, and revealing that Theranos was instead using commercially available machines, made by other manufacturers, to accomplish its testing.
Holmes was eventually charged with, and pleaded not guilty to, nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The government asserts she engaged in two criminal schemes, one to defraud investors, the other to defraud doctors and patients. Her trial is set to begin Aug 31, 2021.